OTAGO INSTITUTE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10360, 15 May 1895, Page 4

OTAGO INSTITUTE.

The fiist meeting of the Otago Institute fpr this session was held in the museum last evening and was well attended. Mr A. Hamilton presided. • • NEW MEMBERS. The Chairman reported that Dr R. S Stephenson, Mesars W. A.. Sim and John G. M'Leod had been elected members of the institute, and that Miss Browning had been elected a life member. J : CHANGES IN THB COUNCIL. . The Chaiuman also. reported that since the annual meeting Dr Chilton, who had been appointed president, having decided upon going to England; had* resigned his membership of the society, and Dc, Belcher had also resigned from the council. ' Consequent upon these resignations the conncil bad elected the speaker president, and had elected Professor Scott in his place :&i vice-president;- Mr A. Wilson and Mr J. R. Don had been elected to the council. "FLORA OF NEW ZEALAND." The Chairman drew the attention of the members,to the exceedingly gratifying notification, which had been made since the last meet- i ing of the institute, that the Government bad seen fit to authoiise the, re-publication of the "Students' Flora of : New Zealand." —- (Ap- j plause.) So far as that went, the efforts of that society and.of the other branches of the New I Zealand, Institute had been J crowned ■ with .success., The publication, was to ■-include- the naturalised plants which bad established themselves in New ; Zealand, and probably it would a'so include a considerable-number of plates. The, work had been placed in the hands of Professor Kirk. -J-:"' THE, FORESTS OF NEW ZEALAND. The Chairman submitted an interesting and exhaustive paper upon the "Forests of New Zealand." Nearly a third of the colony, he siid, was still covered wi.h busb, and reasonable provision seemed to have.been made by the State for river sources, &c. There was, therefore, no immediate prospect of the dearth of timber or of injurious effects from clearing for the present or in tho immediate future, except a want of timber in the Canterbury Plains, the Otago goldfields district, and perhaps the Waikato. It seemed to him, however, incumbent on the Government to take early steps to secure adequate reserves for future supply and further reserves for climatic considerations, to reduce Ayaste to a minimum, and secure a propex share ef public revenue from the valuable wooded area remaining in* its hands—a portion of which it could devote to replanting denuded hillsides and plains destitute of timber. While New Zealand had a-splendid and most valuable property in her forests as they now exist, she must be. vary careful in her management of them, and no longer proceed blindfold in their disposal and removal. He reviowedat some length the forestry regulations in .orce in otuer parts of the world, and urged tlie members of the institute to assist when the time came in any way they could the organisation of a scientific Government control of all the mighty forests of this land of ours. If the services of properly-trained men were obtained, and the State" forest? well-organised, they might, he was sure, be made within a very short time to return a substantial net incoais, more especially astho receat developments iv the timber trade in England :seemed to promise a new opening, for <New Zealand woods, aad unless the oppoitunity was lost by csrele.s or dishonest shipping, important results might follow. It was worthy of notice that England alone imported £20,000,000 of wood annually. E3r A. Bathgate was of opinion that the subject of forestry hod been shamefully neglected in New Zealand in the past, snd he thought it wonld not be a bad thing to make practical use of that opportunity bypassing a resolution calling the attention- of the Govern' ment .to the matter, .and urging .'them to establish a scientific forestry department. -It was possible that-the time was hardly ripe, but the more publicly tbey brought their subject under the not:ca of the Government the sooner "would the time come when their suggestions would be adopted. An objection which wonld arise was tbat a considerably increased expense would be involved, and for some time probably there •would be no adequate return. Still they should look at the question from a large point of view, and consider not merely whiit return there would be for this generation, but have some consideration for those coming after them.: He had no doubt tbat if the slopes of some of the mountains in Central Otago were planted, the rsinfall in the. valleys would be largely increased. Mr Hamilton had not referred to an enemy of. the forests—possibly because it had not been brought under his notice—and tbat was the rabbit plague. The clearance of young trees on the slopes of the Blue Mountains in the Tapanui district had, he believed, been entirely due. to the ravages' of the pest. The rabbits, also, were much more destructive here to planted trees than he had ever known elsewhere. He ■ understood that the Railway department had attempted to plant.trees along the gorge on the line of the Otsgo Central railway, bat as fast as they were planted tbey were eaten np by rabbits, until the attempt bad to be" given up. Mr G. M. Thomson thought that anyone who contemplated the effect of sailing*lands iv considerable areas for the purpose of felling bush aad clearing*.b'r cultivation, must come to the conclusion that fearful waste went on. As to the effect of tho destruction of forests upon climate,, he thought: the experience of the American department had been that the rainfall had not been diminished by denudation, but the.storage power of the ground had been completely destroyed. As a local illustration of that, he'pointed out that 20 years ago we had an innumerable number of permanent streams all over the. bills in the neighbourhood of Dunedin ; but to-day the channels of those streams were completely dry for many months in the year. He was sure that was the case all over tha open country west of Dunedin. With reference to the felling of the bufh, he did not think it was too much to say that, the Government should be requested not to s_ 11 bush at all for the purpose of clearing. The forests were an extremely valuable a?set, and, with the enormously increased facilities for a rapid transfer of products from one part of the world to another, we would regret our mistake too late if we permitted our forests to I be destroyed now and ravaged by fire and clearing. There was a small local aspect of the case to which he might refer, more especially aB a member of the City Council (Mr Wales) was present. The Corporation of Dunediu had spent an enormous amount of money on the purchase of a reseivcir at Ross's creek, where, originally, tae catchment area was densely covered with bush ; but from year to year, a3 settlement went on, the bush had been steadily encroached into, and the result of the continuance of this would be nob only that we would have an impure water suuplj*, but tbat we would find ths storage capacity of the area so seriously diminished as to affect the volume of the supply. Dr Hocken remarked that in one sense Mr Hamilton's paper was reassuring, for it showed that there was much more of valuable timber in New Zealand than tbe soeaker, for one, had thought there was. He directed attention to the cruel waßte of forest which occurred as the settlers entered upon bush Isnd. The settler " waited for a burn," and, when the weather had been dry for wseks before, set fice to hundreds of acres of land, the fire goiDg much further, perhaps, than the settler intended. He (Dr Hocken) really thought the Government should endeavour to direct settlement towards the unoccupied lands, so that tbe colony might at present preserve its valuable asset. Mr E. Melland remarked that there were some trees the rabbits did not interfere wiih. | He had tried larch tre.s near the foot of the i TakitiiEO range snd the rabbits had not interfered f.ith them at all. The trees, on the contrary, grew exceedingly well, and he believed they would do very well in Central 0.-go. The larch was not only a quick grower but it waa a valuable tree when it was grown. He noticed that at Home its timber was now used for railway sleepers, and if ifc were grown in tbe vicinity of Clyde at;d Cromwell they mipht have the sleepers on the line by the time the railway got up there.—(Laughter.) The Chairman, in reply, said the question of the primary expense in the institution of a forestry department need not be very serious. Later on in fcha session he thousdtt the institute might have collected particulars to enable it to forward som6 kind of a memorial on the subject to the Government.

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